mirror of
https://github.com/wezm/wezm.net.git
synced 2024-12-21 03:39:54 +00:00
106 lines
5.3 KiB
Markdown
106 lines
5.3 KiB
Markdown
+++
|
|
title = "Alpine Linux and Docker Infrastructure Three Years Later"
|
|
date = 2022-02-28T09:52:10+10:00
|
|
|
|
[extra]
|
|
#updated = 2022-01-27T21:07:32+10:00
|
|
+++
|
|
|
|
Three years ago I published,
|
|
[Rebuilding My Personal Infrastructure With Alpine Linux and Docker][original-post],
|
|
in which I described how I was hosting various applications using an [Alpine
|
|
Linux][alpine] host and [Docker] on a virtual machine at [Vultr]. I thought it
|
|
would be good to write a follow-up on how this worked out.
|
|
|
|
<!-- more -->
|
|
|
|
The server I set up in 2019 is still running, although it has been through a
|
|
few Alpine upgrades in that time. Since there are very few packages installed
|
|
on the host, upgrades are painless. When I originally configured the
|
|
server Docker Compose was not in the stable Alpine package repos. It was added
|
|
in the mid-2019 Alpine 3.10 release. I was glad to be able to remove `pip` and
|
|
not have to manually manage compose updates after migrating to the package from
|
|
that point on.
|
|
|
|
In 2019 the services I was hosting looked like this:
|
|
|
|
![Before](https://www.wezm.net/images/2019/services.svg)
|
|
|
|
In 2022 the situation is now:
|
|
|
|
![After](services.svg)
|
|
|
|
As you can see the server is now running more containers. It now hosts a number
|
|
of new services including a [Pleroma] instance and several web-applications I
|
|
built in Rust ([leaf], [quotes], [dewpoint]). I also retired the [Binary
|
|
Trance] Rails instance and migrated from [acme.sh] to [lego]. I ran a [Nitter]
|
|
instance for a while but removed it after it bots made it consume a huge amount
|
|
of bandwidth. See my [Burning 2.5Tb of Bandwidth Hosting a Nitter
|
|
Instance](@/posts/2021/nitter-bandwidth/index.md) post for more details on
|
|
that.
|
|
|
|
The [Read Rust] application is implemented in [Crystal]. This one posed a bit
|
|
of a challenge. It is the only container I run that is not derived from a
|
|
minimal Alpine base image that I build myself. Instead, it uses `debian-slim`. I
|
|
need to use a specific version of the Crystal compiler to build my application,
|
|
which means I can't use the version in the Alpine package repos. Additionally
|
|
the Linux binaries that the project published for this version are not
|
|
dynamically linked but the bundled `libgc.a` assumes a `glibc` based system:
|
|
|
|
$ crystal build src/asdf.cr
|
|
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-alpine-linux-musl/10.3.1/../../../../x86_64-alpine-linux-musl/bin/ld: /crystal-0.34.0-1/bin/../lib/crystal/lib/libgc.a(pthread_support.o): in function `GC_thr_init':
|
|
pthread_support.c:(.text+0x1137): undefined reference to `gnu_get_libc_version'
|
|
⋮
|
|
|
|
For this reason I opted to use a Debian base image for this container and that's
|
|
worked fine.
|
|
|
|
Another notable change is the move from [acme.sh] to [lego] for managing TLS
|
|
certificates. In my original post I noted the following regarding how the
|
|
certificates were renewed:
|
|
|
|
> Docker and cron is also a challenge. I ended up solving that with a simple
|
|
> solution: use the host cron to `docker exec` acme.sh in the `hitch` container.
|
|
> Perhaps not “pure” Docker but a lot simpler than some of the options I saw.
|
|
|
|
It turned out that this never worked. I could see that cron was running the
|
|
script but the certs would not get renewed. For a while I ran the
|
|
script manually to renew them, which did work. Eventually I got sick of this, and
|
|
thinking `acme.sh` was to blame I searched for an alternative.
|
|
|
|
I settled on [lego], an ACME client implemented in Go. I [discovered and
|
|
suggested a fix for a bug][lego-bug] and [contributed LuaDNS
|
|
support][lego-luadns] in May 2020 and then migrated over to using it instead of
|
|
`acme.sh`. It was in the final stages of test this that I discovered the cron
|
|
bug was in my script all along. Adding `-T` to inhibit `docker-compose exec`
|
|
from allocating a TTY fixed the issue. It's likely this would have fixed the
|
|
issue for `acme.sh` as well. Ultimately lego felt like the better option as the
|
|
code in `acme.sh` for constructing API requests and [parsing their
|
|
results][acme-parse] seemed quite fragile
|
|
|
|
[Jokes aside][it-works-on-my-machine], I still find the Docker workflow of
|
|
iterating on an image locally then shipping it when it's working to be quite
|
|
pleasant. In summary this server has served me well over the last three years
|
|
and I have no immediate plans to rebuild again. It's been reliable and mostly
|
|
hassle free. Hosting on [Vultr] has also been reliable and stable over that
|
|
whole time with only the odd interruption for network maintenance or network
|
|
issues.
|
|
|
|
[original-post]: https://www.wezm.net/technical/2019/02/alpine-linux-docker-infrastructure/
|
|
[alpine]: https://alpinelinux.org/
|
|
[Docker]: https://www.docker.com/
|
|
[Vultr]: https://www.vultr.com/?ref=7903263
|
|
[lego-luadns]: https://github.com/go-acme/lego/pull/1135
|
|
[lego-bug]: https://github.com/go-acme/lego/issues/1150
|
|
[acme-parse]: https://github.com/acmesh-official/acme.sh/blob/2a2d556551e9266a3924da205c1ede55d89a689d/dnsapi/dns_lua.sh#L117-L126
|
|
[Pleroma]: https://pleroma.social/
|
|
[lego]: https://go-acme.github.io/lego/
|
|
[acme.sh]: https://github.com/acmesh-official/acme.sh
|
|
[Read Rust]: https://github.com/wezm/read-rust/
|
|
[Crystal]: https://crystal-lang.org/
|
|
[Binary Trance]: https://binarytrance.com/
|
|
[leaf]: https://github.com/wezm/leaf
|
|
[quotes]: https://github.com/wezm/Quotes
|
|
[dewpoint]: https://github.com/wezm/dewpoint.7bit.org
|
|
[Nitter]: https://github.com/zedeus/nitter
|
|
[it-works-on-my-machine]: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/cw58z7/it_works_on_my_machine/
|